As Middle East Wars Escalate, US Presidents Usually Rein In Israel. Can Biden?

America's response to outbreaks of violence in the Middle East conflict has followed the same pattern for decades: U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton to Barack Obama have pledged support for Israel, then urged restraint and eventually called for an end to the fighting as the death tolls rose.

But President Joe Biden faces a unique combination of factors that may constrain his approach to the war between Israel and Hamas. These include the unprecedented scale of Hamas' attack, the threat of a regional war, a hostage crisis involving American citizens, and growing calls for de-escalation from progressive Democrats who have become increasingly vocal in their support for Palestinians in recent years.

As Israel's newly formed emergency wartime government prepares for a likely ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, it is unclear when Biden may step in to try and de-escalate the conflict, or how much leverage he'll have to rein in Israel if the toll on civilians starts to rise.

Biden faces more of a challenge than U.S. presidents have in years in containing a war in the Middle East that involves Israel from spinning out of control, John McLaughlin, who served as a former acting director of the CIA under George W. Bush, told Newsweek.

"The American task at this point is to keep it from going beyond where it is," McLaughlin said. "Once you get past this phase, you can start thinking about de-escalation."

On Tuesday, in his most extensive remarks to date on the crisis, Biden said that America would stand with Israel, and he condemned Hamas—a militant group that controls the Gaza Strip and is designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization—for unleashing a wave of bloodshed against civilians.

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, among them 22 Americans. More than 900 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, according to the Associated Press.

The president also appeared to urge Israel to exercise some restraint, saying that democracies like Israel and the U.S. differ from terrorist groups because they "uphold the rules of war."

But Biden's message was widely interpreted as giving Israel ample space, for now, to respond aggressively to the deadliest attack on the nation in its 75-year history.

This Time It's Different

In previous cycles of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there was a kind of rhythm in the course of events, Mohammed Hafez, an expert on Islamic political violence and Middle East politics at the Naval Postgraduate School, told Newsweek. "Hamas attacks, Israel responds, and the international outcry and American and regional pressure on Israel to deescalate leads to a return to the status quo."

"This time around that will not happen," Hafez said. "Israel has made clear it wants to eliminate Hamas."

Israel's defense minister on Tuesday ordered a complete siege of Gaza, blocking water, fuel, food and electricity from reaching the territory ahead of an assault on Hamas. With the fighting expected to intensify, the Biden administration is working with Egypt and Israel to create a safe corridor for civilians to flee, according to senior White House officials.

During around two weeks of fighting in Gaza in 2021, the Biden administration followed the usual playbook.

Yet even if Biden tried to intervene more forcefully in the coming weeks it's unlikely that Israel would heed his warning, several experts said.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have looked to the U.S. as a peacemaker to resolve past crises. But the size of the Hamas attack and indiscriminate killing of civilians has set this moment apart from previous eruptions in violence such as the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when a coalition of Arab states launched a surprise attack against Israel.

"People compare it to the Yom Kippur War, but for the Israeli civilian population this is far, far worse," Mara Rudman, a former Middle East peace envoy in the Obama administration, told Newsweek.

It would be extremely difficult for any U.S. president to exert pressure on Israel's leaders at the moment given how raw emotions are in the country in the early days of the war, Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, told Newsweek.

"Pushing Israel in one direction or another is going to be very hard," said Byman.

The hostage crisis will also limit Biden's leverage, Byman said, because the U.S. will need to work closely with Israel to secure the release of the American hostages being held by Hamas.

"A designated terrorist group is holding American citizens hostage. This is something that will raise the stakes for the Biden administration," said Byman.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Tuesday at the White House that 17 U.S. citizens remain unaccounted for since Hamas launched its attack. It's unclear how many of them might be held hostage by Hamas, he said. "We all need to steel ourselves for the very distinct possibility that these numbers may increase," Kirby said.

The Hostage Factor

As the war continues, the Biden administration will be motivated to resolve the hostage crisis as quickly as possible and minimize the civilian death toll on both sides, Middle East experts said. There are also other reasons why the White House may choose with time to try to push Israel harder to bring the fighting to an end.

The war has put a pause on Israel and Saudi Arabia's negotiations to normalize relations. The Biden administration, which is helping broker the deal, could use the prospect of reaching a historic accord to entice Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid a prolonged war with Hamas.

An agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a diplomatic coup for Netanyahu, though in light of the attack by Hamas it's unclear if he would agree to include concessions to Palestinians as part of the deal.

A diplomatic victory in the Middle East would also benefit Biden, who has sought to continue a policy started by the Trump administration to bolster ties between Israel and its neighbors. And a relatively swift resolution to the Israel-Hamas war that contains the fighting to Israel and Gaza would avoid a broader regional confrontation with Iran, allowing Biden to keep his foreign policy focus on China, Russia, and the war in Ukraine.

Limiting the extent of the war may also help Biden shore up support among Democrats as he seeks reelection in 2024, and to push back against claims from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans who have criticized his Middle East policy. As president, Trump did not face a crisis of anywhere near the same scale in Gaza.

In a Gallup survey from March on public attitudes about tensions in the Middle East, 49 percent of Democrats said they sympathized more with Palestinians, compared to 38 percent who said they were more sympathetic to Israelis. That represents a marked shift from 2001, when Gallup found Democrats sympathized with Israelis more than Palestinians by a 25-point margin.

"The shifts in the public discourse around this are real," James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, told Newsweek.

Some Democrats in Congress and Palestinian rights advocates have already begun warning of an impending humanitarian crisis in Gaza, raising the prospect that a prolonged war there could become a political problem for the president. Activists have held rallies across the United States and around the world in recent days to oppose a new war in the Middle East.

Former U.S. officials who've worked with Biden over the years said that domestic political concerns won't factor into his calculations as the president and his top advisers grapple with the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden will "start from the place of what is the right thing to do?" said Rudman, who served in the Obama and Clinton administrations. The White House is focused on "protecting U.S. interests, U.S. national security concerns, and what does that mean in terms of where and when we help allies in trouble," Rudman added.

However Biden proceeds, it is clear that the latest eruption of violence in the Middle East "may not follow the usual script," Michael Hanna, the U.S. program director for the International Crisis Group, told Newsweek.

For Biden, he added, "this is a different kind of challenge."